Population Genetic Structure of a Viviparous Sand Lizard, the Phrynocephalus forsythii in the Tarim Basin, Xinjiang of China
, Jingxian Nong 1, Luoxue Jiang 1, Tianying Chen 1, Wen Zhong 1, Wei Zhao 2, Yue Qi 2, Penghui Guo 1,* and You Li 1,3,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe MS by Duan et al. presents interesting and pertinent information on the genetic structure of a lizard species that is under conservation concern. The study design and its implementation are appropriate, and the conclusions are largely justified. The only issues I have are presentation, and these are relatively minor.
First, the paragraph related to global climate change (lines 344-370) is highly speculative and not related to the presented results. It needs to be greatly shortened or deleted altogether. In addition, the section in the Conclusions beginning with line 376 seem more appropriate as justification for the study and thus should be part of the Introduction.
Second, there are numerous minor, grammatical corrections that I have enumerated in the section for English improvement.
Comments on the Quality of English Languageline comment
15 change “locates” to “is located”
17 change to “…demonstrated to have a potentially high extinction risk due to climate…”
18 change “of” to “for”
24 change to “…will provide a scientific…”
30-31 change to “…most dominant ecosystems and an essential element of the terrestrial landscape [1].”
36 delete “deserts and”
40 change to “…other hand, this complex…”
45 insert “The” before “Tarim Basin”
47 delete “continental”
48 insert “the” before “ecological”
51 insert “has” between “desert” and “mostly”
53 delete “the” before “research”
56 “Ovis” is a genus and should be capitalized and italicized
57 delete “of sheep breeds”
60 delete comma
63-64 change to “…among the populations, underscoring the urgent need to strengthen the conservation of genetic diversity of…”
68 change to “…belonging to the family Agamidae…”
69 insert “the” before “Gobi”
72 replace “size” with “amount”
75 replace “size” with “amount”
77-78 change to “…demonstrated with the potential for a high risk of extinction under…”
80 change “of” to “for”
85 insert “the” before “scientific”
86 delete comma
90 insert “the” before “reported”
92 delete “body” before “data”
96 replace “experiments” with “analyses”
112 delete “The”
117 “pre-denaturation” should not be capitalized
161 insert “The” before “Number”
202 insert comma before “and;” delete “significant”
203 change to “…populations had loci that exhibited…”
292 either replace “within” to “between” or insert “to” before “within”
296 replace “was” with “had”
297 replace “fewer” with “small”
299 replace “are” with “were”
304 insert comma before “and”
314 insert “be” before “present”
318 insert “the” before “Wahlund”
319 delete “but”
320-321 replace “might be” with “are”
323 delete “region”
336 delete “the” before “P. forsythia”
342 replace “in the blank” with “lacking”
373-374 change to “…and migration between populations are likely limited” or “…and migration are largely restricted to within populations…”
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authorsline 120: “annealing at 4 °C for 30 s” -> this seems very low for an annealing temperature. Is this meant to be in the 40s?
Section 2.3.1 and 2.3.2: You mention R packages, but not which version of R (and citation of R) you ran the analyses on.
Section 3.4 results would be easier to understand if presented in a table.
Line 355: “Poikilothermy” -> “poikilothermy”
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
